


hangin' on the telephone

by TheWrongKindOfPC



Series: slightly less magical older-sibling-figures in like [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: F/M, Phone Calls & Telephones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 06:41:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5154020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWrongKindOfPC/pseuds/TheWrongKindOfPC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You could get a cell phone like a normal person,” he tells her, stalling.</p><p>“You could work on developing your latent psychic abilities and then we could leave electronics out of it altogether,” she shoots back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hangin' on the telephone

It’s been about a month, this thing with Orla, and Declan is waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“I would never be that careless with my shoes,” Orla answers his thought as easily as if he’d said it aloud, in that way that still hasn’t stopped feeling unnerving. “Now get to the part where you ask me the thing you called to ask—you’re up to five twenty-five and these are peak hotline hours.”

“You could get a cell phone like a normal person,” he tells her, stalling.

“You could work on developing your latent psychic abilities and then we could leave electronics out of it altogether,” she shoots back, and the part of him that didn’t want to have this conversation at all pounces on it.

“Do I have those?” he asks her, and she hums, considering.

“Not much, you’re definitely not a powerhouse like yours truly, but there’s definitely a smidgeon more there than with most mere mortals. You dream, right?”

The question hits him like a blow, like Ronan’s fist to the side of his head, knuckles rough and no desire to spare either of them any pain.

“No,” he says, holding his voice steady, “Not like—”

“Not like your brother, of course not,” Orla agrees. “You dream like yourself. Or you did, until you started drowning them all out.”

“Those weren’t—those were not good dreams,” Declan manages, tone only a bit unsteady.

“Of course not,” Orla agrees again, and she’s not an agreeable girl, the degree to which she’s allowing that Declan’s point of view is accurate is a little worrying. “but they were filled with so much fear. And there’s so much to be afraid of.”

“What do you know about that?” Declan hears himself demand, and two thirds of him wants to slam the phone down rather than hear her answer, but the rest of him holds on.

“Not a lot,” Orla tells him, laughing. “Your fate is a mess, you know. And so are your intentions. No way to get a clear reading. Now, are you going to ask me to go to that party already?”

It’s a party Declan’s frat is throwing, and Ash is coming, and it’s been a month, and so if Declan’s going to save face, he’s got to bring someone. By all rights, it should probably be Julie from his EU Gov. class, or someone from Ashley’s sorority—that’s just how this kind of thing goes—but something in him wants to bring Orla instead.

He doesn't have to, he knows—he’s pretty sure if he stopped calling entirely, Orla would be almost entirely unfazed, and he’s mostly sure half the reason she even likes him is for his car. Last weekend, for example, she’d had him drive her out to a craft fair the next county over, and hang around looking at tables full of homemade doilies and jars of preserves for nearly three hours as Orla had tied a scarf around her hair, put on a fake accent, and fleeced the locals for all she could get.

Declan had known, even before he’d started the car for the drive up, that he hadn’t needed to go, but something in him had felt it like an adventure, rather than whatever weird challenge sat behind Orla’s eyes when she had asked.

When he’d driven her home afterward, she’d kissed his cheek and then bounded into 300 Fox Way when they’d gotten back, and he’d almost thought that was that, but just as he was fitting his key into the ignition, a woman he was reasonably sure was Orla’s mother had stuck her head out the front door and asked, “Well, are you coming?”

Dinner had been hurried and cluttered and strange, familial in a way where something about the atmosphere of warm impatience and too many big personalities around a table had just caught the edges of what dinner used to be like with his family before dad, before everything.

Adding to the impression of familiarity, of the discomfort he’d always been more likely to get with family than with strangers, Orla’s little cousin, Ronan’s little friend, had shot him suspicious looks all through the meal.

“You really should have called ahead,” she’s told Orla a few minutes before excusing herself from the table. “It’s just luck of the draw Mr. Gray isn’t here.”

“I never leave anything to luck,” Orla told her, and Declan believed it. Blue had stuck her tongue out in reply, and Declan had been distantly pleased it wasn’t just him Orla pulled the “all-powerful psychic” card with, and that he wasn’t the only one annoyed by it.

Now, Orla says, “You want me to play bodyguard for the totally justified wrath of your ex, right?"

Declan agrees with her, but thinks as quietly as he can that that isn't quite all there is to it—that he’s curious to see what she’d make of the place were he spends so much of his life—he imagines vines and blossoms growing as he even thinks of Orla’s intuition running riot over the event, and thinks maybe he wants her to there. He doesn't ask if she’s heard that thought, though. Instead, he asks, “Pick you up at eight?”


End file.
